2020 LTS Keflavik news post draft: Difference between revisions

2020 LTS Keflavik news post draft (view source)

Revision as of 10:22, 28 October 2020

1,801 bytes added , 28 October 2020

cleanup

Vs

1,746

edits

@@ Line 22: / Line 22: @@
 ===Welcome to Keflavik and Iceland===
-FG's 2020 LTS will move to the world's newest country, geologically speaking, Iceland. Keflavík International Airport (BIKF)
+FG's 2020 LTS will move to the world's newest country, geologically speaking, Iceland. Keflavík International Airport (BIKF) is the featured airport for the LTS. Keflavík airport is the largest airport in Iceland with 10 million people passing through in 2018. It serves as the international gateway to Iceland, and its 3 km runways are a Space Shuttle emergency landing site.
-is the featured airport, serving as the international gateway to Iceland and it's 3 km runway is a Shuttle emergency landing site.
 [Screenshot of shuttle landing here, preferably with current keep]
-Keflavik Airport is modeled in detail, including the art installations at the airport [names?]. For Iceland, there are also buildings, roads, and objects like pylons for the whole country generated by the OSM2City project available as a [http://wiki.flightgear.org/Areas_populated_with_osm2city_scenery separate download] [which will be added to TerraSync a later date?]. OSM2City buildings compatible with 2020 LTS have improved visuals and render faster.
+Keflavik Airport is modeled in detail, including the art installations at the airport [names?]. For Iceland there are also buildings, roads, and objects like pylons for the whole country generated by the OSM2City project. These are available as a [http://wiki.flightgear.org/Areas_populated_with_osm2city_scenery separate download] [which will be added to TerraSync a later date?]. OSM2City buildings compatible with 2020 LTS have improved visuals and render faster.
-[Kelfavik art screenshot, Iceland OSM2City pictures]
+[Kelfavik art installation screenshot, Iceland OSM2City pictures]
-A land of fire, as well as ice, parts of Iceland are still being formed under the dancing Northern lights (remember to turn Auroras on and watch!). An example is the Island of Surtsey formed in 1963 - and Surtsey's volcanic vents are now modeled in the LTS.
+A land of fire, as well as ice, Iceland is still growing, and new parts are still being formed under the dancing Northern lights (remember to turn Auroras on and watch!). An example is the island of Surtsey formed in 1963 - and Surtsey's volcanic vents are now modeled in the LTS.
 [Screenshot of Surtsey, screenshot of Aurora in Iceland]
-Flightgear models several Icelandic volcanoes at multiple activity levels, Eyjafjallajökull, Surtsey, and Katla. Eyjafjallajökull caused severe disruption to aviation in 2010, and Katla is a far bigger volcano located nearby. Past eruptions at Katla have ranged from a volcanic explosivity index (VEI) of 4 like Eyjafjallajökull, to a VEI of 6 like Mount Pinturbo or Krakatoa. Scarily Katla is somewhat overdue for a eruption. Screenshots don't do the boiling turblence of a volcanic plume like Katla, so I won't spoil it and leave you to discover appreciate the scale of the forces involved [unless someone has a particularly nice screenshot?]. FG's Advanced Weather engine now models the increased turbulence in wind-fields associated with volcanic activity, so beware!.
+Iceland's volcanoes are often strato-volcanoes with their steeper cone shaped sides, as the viscous lava here flows less easily becoming hard before spreading far. Eruptions can be explosive, as gasses remain trapped. There are some shield volcanoes too, with their the shallower domes shapes similar to the volcanoes of Hawaii.
-Iceland has rugged volcanic terrain with glaciers, fjords, and a cool wet climate. There is plenty to discover. The island has only been colonised recently by both nature and people. There are almost no trees, the young forests having been cleared by early colonists. To re-create the stark subpolar setting, remember to turn on overlays which add high resolution 3d detail, and set transparency Anti-Aliasing to MSAA in the GPU control panel (or supersampling on powerful cards). People with older GPUs may find they have spare performance for overlays in Iceland as there are fewer trees.
+[Screenshot of a volcano with no eruption?]
+Flightgear models several Icelandic volcanoes at multiple activity levels; Eyjafjallajökull, Surtsey, and Katla. Eyjafjallajökull and it's cloud of volcanic ash caused severe disruption to aviation in 2010. Katla is a far bigger volcano located nearby. Past eruptions at Katla have ranged from a Volcanic Explosivity Index (VEI) of 4 like Eyjafjallajökull, to a VEI of 6 like Mount Pinturbo (1991) or Krakatoa (1883). Scarily Katla is somewhat overdue for an eruption. Screenshots don't do the boiling turbulence of a volcanic plume like Katla. We won't spoil it, so you can discover and appreciate the scale of the forces involved [unless someone has a particularly nice screenshot?]. FG's Advanced Weather engine now models the increased turbulence in wind-fields associated with volcanic activity, so beware!.
+Iceland has rugged volcanic terrain with glaciers, deserts, ice caps, marshes, fjords and a cool wet climate. There is plenty to discover. The island has only been colonised recently by both nature and people. There are almost no trees, as the young forests were cleared by early settlers. To re-create the stark subpolar setting, remember to turn on overlays which add high resolution 3d detail, and set [http://wiki.flightgear.org/Anti-aliasing#Transparency_anti-aliasing Transparency Anti-Aliasing] to MSAA in the GPU control panel (or supersampling on powerful cards). As Iceland has few trees, people with older GPUs may find they have spare performance and can use overlays in Iceland.
 [Screenshots: [http://www.science-and-fiction.org/FG/pics/iceland03.jpg this] one of Iceland terrain, maybe screenshot of overlays with transparency AA turned up high like [http://wiki.flightgear.org/File:Bell_412_in_Iceland_(Flightgear_2019.x).jpg this] ]
-A place needs 4 dimensions to describe it, 3 in space and 1 in time. Any default setting can only be moment in time, and in FG the ever changing scenery is simulated from the Environment > Environment Settings menu. In FG's environment sliders, Iceland is often suited being towards the autumn season with wet ground and moss. Look under Enviroment > > Detailed Weather > Advanced Weather settings to simulate ground haze and structure. The temperature offset can be lowered to adjust the weather scenarios used in FG's terrain-driven, evolving, AW simulation - lower temperatures can mean stunning halos and scattering by ice crystals in clouds.
+A place needs 4 dimensions to describe it, 3 in space and 1 in time. Any default setting can only be a moment in time, and in FG the ever-changing cycles of nature is simulated from the Environment > Environment Settings menu. In FG's environment sliders, Iceland is often suited being towards the autumn season with wet ground and moss.
+[Screenshots of varying environment sliders]
+Flightgear's Advanced Weather (AW) engine simulates terrain-driven, continually evolving, weather - look under Environment > Detailed Weather > Advanced Weather settings for controls. To recreate the turbulent windfields associated with the rugged mountainous terrain make sure terrain effects and presampling is enabled. The controls for detailed gust controls, cloud shadows, ground haze and structure are also there. For shorter trips you may want to decrease the sizes of distinct air masses and scales of weather patterns, to see more change. There are far more weather variables under the hood than are [can be?] exposed in the GUI, and these are randomised each time the AW simulation is restarted - press 'Apply' to restart. Remember that to recreate Iceland's cool temperatures, the temperature offset needs be lowered to adjust the weather scenarios used AW simulation. As temperatures decrease, rain will turn to snow or hail as appropriate, and with lower temperatures you'll be rewarded with stunning halos and scattering by ice crystals in clouds.
-[Screenshots of varying sliders]
+[at least one screenshot of weather in Iceland: red ice crystal halo at sunset like [http://wiki.flightgear.org/File:Aurora_Borealis_and_Sun_halo_in_Northern_Norway_in_Autumn_(Flightgear_2019.x).jpg this]]
+[Mention some nice airports? BIIS? BIAR?]
+[Mention C172p float, ski, bush tire variants? J3Cub improvements? Twin Otter is also suitable]
 ----
-Add more things here..maybe
+Add more things here..possibly:
 - mention a few major improvements and the space shuttle (backed by high settings screenshots), or leave it for later?
 - Add a mention that a more detailed article about features mentioned in the changelog is underway